After winning gold in the 800-meter freestyle relay, Kim Woo-min (22, Gangwon Provincial Office) stayed up late to “chat” with his teammates in the athlete’s village after winning South Korea’s first ever Asian Games team title.
The excitement of enduring long hours of grueling training together and achieving such a rewarding result was hard to contain.
However, she was unable to extend the excitement of the 800-meter freestyle relay gold to her first individual event, the 1,500-meter freestyle.
Kim finished second in the men’s 1,500-meter freestyle final in 15:01.07 at the Hangzhou Asian Games 2022 at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China, on Saturday.
Fei Liwei (20-China) took the lead after 450 meters and touched the touchpad 5.60 seconds ahead of Kim in 14:55.47.
A silver medal in the 1,500-meter freestyle is also precious.
Kim Woo-min became the first South Korean to win a medal in the men’s 1,500 meters at an Asian Games in 13 years after Park Tae-hwan (1st in Doha 2006, 2nd in Guangzhou 2010).
However, he fell short of becoming the first Korean swimmer to win four Asian Games titles.
The day before, Kim had joined forces with Hwang Sun-woo, Yang Jae-hoon (Gangwon Province) and Lee Ho-joon (Daegu Metropolitan City) to win Korea’s first ever team gold medal at an Asian Games.
His second medal of the Games, and first as an individual, was silver.
“After winning gold in the 800-meter freestyle relay yesterday, I couldn’t fall asleep easily because I felt so good. We arrived at the athletes’ village at midnight after the doping test, and we stayed up late encouraging each other,” Kim recalled.
In the 800-meter freestyle relay, everyone wanted to win the team gold as much as the individual events, and they did, setting an Asian record of 7:01.73.
“Winning the 800-meter freestyle relay was the most important goal,” says Kim Woo-min. I had been training mainly for the 200-meter freestyle, so in the 1,500-meter today, my stamina dropped in the middle and late stages,” Kim said.
After winning gold in the 800-meter freestyle relay, Kim had no regrets.
“Although we didn’t win the quadruple, I’m still satisfied with the silver medal in the 1,500 meters,” said Kim Woo-min. “I will focus more on the remaining events and show better performances.”
Kim’s strongest performances came in the 400- and 800-meter freestyle events.
In the men’s 400m freestyle at the 2023 World Championships Fukuoka in July, Kim broke his own personal best in both the preliminaries (3:44.50) and final (3:43.92) 바카라사이트 to secure a top-five finish in the world.
Kim, who finished sixth in 3:45.64 at Budapest last year, improved his time by 1.72 seconds in less than a year and moved up one spot to fifth on the World Championships personal best list.
Kim was the only Asian to reach the final of the men’s 400-meter freestyle at both last year’s and this year’s World Championships.
In the men’s 800-meter freestyle, Park’s time of 7:47.69 broke the Korean record of 7:49.93 set by Tae-hwan Park at the London Olympics in August 2012 by 2.24 seconds.
Park’s 800-meter freestyle record is an “800-meter leg record” measured during the 1,500-meter race at the 2012 London Olympics. In an official 800-meter race, it’s likely that Park would have lowered his time even further.
However, compared to the current record, Kim Woo-min is already the best in Asia.
At the Fukuoka World Championships, Kim finished 14th in the 800-meter freestyle. No other Asian swimmer finished ahead of him.
“My goal is to break my personal record in the 400-meter freestyle, which is my main event. In the 800 meters, I will try to capitalize on the feeling of breaking the Korean record,” Kim said.
If Kim wins gold in the remaining two events, he will become only the third South Korean swimmer to win a triple, joining Choi Yun-hee at New Delhi 1982 and Park Tae-hwan at Doha 2006 and Guangzhou 2010. 카지노사이트